Stamping means



Dec. 16, 1952 F. c. HENDERSON 2,621,591

STAMPING MEANS Filed Jan. 26, 1950 2 SHEETS-SHEET 1 l HH wl INVENTOR.

fi'marzrlffg 10 By 2 SI-iEETS-SHEET 2 STAMPING MEANS INVENTOR.

F. C. HENDERSON Dec. 16, 1952 Filed Jan. 26, 1950 Patented Dec. 16, 1952 STAMPING MEANS Frederick 0. Henderson, Alliance, Ohio, assignor to Royal China Inc., Sebring, Ohio, a. corporation of Ohio Application January 26, 1950, Serial No. 140,661

9 Claims.

The present invention relates to stamping means and more particularly to a stamp which may be utilized for impressing designs on table ware such as dishes.

For decorative purposes it is frequently desirable to apply or impress a design on table ware such as saucers, dishes, platters, etc. These designs are usually provided by applying colored inks or other suitable media to desired surface areas of the ware, the materials being printed on by stamps.

The application of a decorative design to both the rim areas and central areas of ware has presented numerous difiiculties. For example, it is difficult to avoid blurring of a design while it is being applied by a samp. Moreover, the ware usually has sloping or concave rim portions and relatively flat center portions, making more pronounced the diificulty of forming readily clear, unblurred designs. Impressing the decoration on the rims and the centers of the ware in separate operations is wasteful of time and money because of the duplication involved. It has been attempted to overcome such and other difiiculties by utilizing a stamp with a nonplanar face for printing both side and central portions of the ware in a single stamping operation, but this also is objectionable. For example, the surface of such a stamp must be very carefully configu rated to correspond with the concavity or an-gul'ation of the surface to be decorated, which is tedious and costly; if the ware should vary slightly in angularity at rim portions so as not to correspond exactly with the angularity of the stamp, the stamp will fail to produce a clearly defined design, but instead will tend to slide laterally at portions and smudge or smear the design. In addition, it is very difficult to apply ink or other coloring media uniformly to the printing surface or the nonplanar stamp, and uneven distribution on the printing surface results in a non-uniform printed design of varying degrees of sharpness and clarity on the china or dishware. Moreover, unless the stamp contacts the ware to be impressed over its entire surface area simultaneously, portions of the stamp tend to slip along the surf-ace of the ware at one or two points until contact is complete on all sides, resulting in smearing and blurring of the design.

The present invention aims to overcome or minimize the above and other diificulties by providing a new and improved stamping means which may be used to decorate side and center portions of table ware in one operation, and

which reduces to a minimum the likelihood of smudging or blurring the were during the stamp ing operation. The invention further contemplates the provision of a stamp with a planar printing face that facilitates more uniform -dis-" tribution or application of ink or other printing media thereto; as a result, designs impressed on ware are sharp and uniform in texture.

An object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved stamping means adapted for use in applying decorations to nonplanar surfaces of wares;

Another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved stamp adapted to form; more clearly defined and more accurate designs on ware.

Another object of the invention is to provide a yieldable or resilient stamp with separately compressible printing faces which may be usedto impress "a decorative design on the marginal and center portions of ware with minimum or no smudging or blurring.

Another object of the invention is to provide a stamp capable of forming well-defined designs'on a planar portion and an angular portion of an article in a single stamping operation.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved yieldable or resilient stamp with a planar face to which ink or other printing media may be applied relatively uniformly so that a clearly defined design may be impressed on ware by the stamp.

A still further object of the invention is to provide a novel method of making the present stamping means or device.

Other and further objects of the invention will be obvious upon an understanding of the illustrative embodiment about to be described, or will be indicated in the appended claims, and various advantages not referred to herein will occur to one skilled in the art upon employment of the invention in practice.

A preferred embodiment of the invention has been chosen for purposes of illustration and description and is shown in the accompanying drawings, forming a part of the specification, wherein:

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a stamping device embodying the invention, partly broken away for purposes of illustration;

Fig. 2 is a top view of the stamping means shown in Fig. 1, with a portion broken away to disclose more clearly various features;

Fig. 3 is a sectional view taken along line 3-3 of Fig. 2;

Fig. 4 is an enlarged fragmentary sectional view showing the stamping means just prior to contacting a dish;

Fig. is a sectional view showing the stamp of Fig. 4 in contact with a rim portion of a dish;

Fig. 6 is a sectional view showing the stamp of Fig. 4 in contact with a rim portion and an inner portion of a dish; and

Fig. '7 is a fragmentary plan view showing a slightly modified form of the invention.

Referring again to the drawings and more particularly to Figs. 1, 2 and 3 there is shown a base member I carrying a yieldable cushion to the outermost face of which is secured an outwardly facing design forming surface. The backer or base member I may be wood, aluminum, plastic or any other suitable material, the backing means preferably being rigid so as to firmly support a yieldable or resilient face. The un-' derside 4 of said base member may be planar and provided with means such as screw holes 1 and 9 by which the member can be adiustably mounted on a ware-stamping machine. The front or top side 2 of the base member is preferably provided with an annular recess or groove 8 adapted to receive an annular portion of resilient or yieldable material In. The base member may be formed from a single piece of material or may be built up in any suitable manner.

A soft, readily compressible material such as foam rubber is preferably used for annular band It and it may be secured in the recess or groove 8 by rubber cement or some other suitable adhesive 5 at its undersurface. An additional thickness or layers I2 of similar resilient yieldable material may be adhered to the top 6 of the base member I, inwardly of the groove 8, and to the upper surface it; of the resilient band H3; where a plurality of separate layers are used they are adhered one to the other. Two such layers are shown provided in the preferred embodiment; although the construction disclosed thus far has dealt only with built-up layers of resilient material his to be understood that a similar resilient or yieldable cushion could be formed from a single thickness or layer of said material. The layers or thickness I2 are preferably applied so as to extend entirely across the base member I, the line of division or separation 30 between them being subsequently provided, as will be hereinafter brought out.

Adhered to and supported by the uppermost of said resilient layers I2, there is shown a layer I I of less easily compressible resilient material such as sponge rubber. Side portions of the layer I4 are preferably cut away or narrowed toward the material which receives ink and which prints a design during usage. In the drawings these printing faces are shown of some suitable semihard design rubber and are mounted on top of the sponge rubber layer I4 by adhesive. Referring to Figs. 1 and 2, it will be seen that the portions which actually print or impress a design comprise two parts (I8 and 29) which are independently mounted on the supporting resilient or yieldable cushion; an inner portion I8 impresses designs on inner or central portionsof the ware to be decorated and an outer annular portion 20 stamps the rims or sides of the articles to be decorated. When adhered to layer It they are separated by a lateral space 24. Either or both of the design-forming portions I8 and 2i) may be formed and applied as a unit or in suitable sections.

As thus far described the stamp comprises a substantially planar outermost printing surface with a separate printing face 28 for the rims and a separate printing face It for the centers of the ware to be impressed. The printing faces are mounted on layers of compressible material and hence may be pressed toward the backing memher I.

It is very desirable that the portions of the printing face be individually compressible when the surfaces to be impressed are nonplanar. This desirable result has been achieved in the present invention by providing an annularly extending slit or recess in the supportin resilient layers of the stamp.

The rim printing portion I3 and center printing portion 29 are separate from each other. A recess 22 formed in the uppermost supporting layer It extends below printing surfaces I8 and 2B and annularly between them. Side portion 23 is shown sloping downwardly from the inner periphery of printing surface 2: becoming about vertical at location 28 so that the recess is wider at the top of layer I4 than at its bottom. A narrow annular slit 30 extends from the lower part of the recess 22 through the underlying layers It and I2, but if desired it may extend only partly through said layers.

The recess 22 and the slit 39 may be made by a sharp knife or by other suitable cutting means after the design-carrying rubber I8 and 28 is applied, so that the yieldable layers supporting the center stamping surface it are severed from the yieldable layers supporting the rim stamping surface 20. Since there is a narrow or "knife edge" slit between the adjacent side wall portions, they tend to mutually support each other. The annular rim stamping portion, for example, is buttressed or supported in its circular shape due to the fact that supporting layers I2a and Ma are held against objectionable lateral movement by the supporting layers I2?) and Mb of center stamping portion I8. Even though they are mutually supporting either of the two stamping surfaces I8 and 20 may be moved to compress its cushion independently of the other.

The annular groove 8 in the backing member and which contains the annular band Ill of yieldable material such as foam rubber is aligned with the rim printing face 20; said printing face is thus supported by a greater thickness of yield able or compressible material than is the center printing face I8. This greater thickness of yieldable or compressible material in its supporting layers gives to rim printing face 29 an amount of compressibility, which greatly facilitates stamping angular or rim portions of ware having such portion "offset with respect to other portions thereof.

As disclosed previously, resilient layer I4 is preferably not as soft or yielding as underlying resilient layers l2; it is preferably composed of material such as sponge rubber while the underlying thickness i preferably composed of material such as foam rubber. The somewhat less resilient or yieldable material in layer I4 directly supports the printing surfaces I8 and 20 and, while it should be sulficiently yieldable to allow conformation of the design-forming areas I8 and 20 to the surfaces of ware, it must yet be amply firm to resist deflection which might cause a smudged or smeared design.

To facilitate the compressibility of sponge rubber layer I4, a series of generally radially extending recesses or grooves 32 is provided spaced circumferentially about the outer periphery of layer portion I la which supports the rim stamping portion 20 of. the; stampface (Fig. 2):. A similar series of smaller generally radially extending recesses or grooves 34. is also. provided spaced circumferentially about the outer periphery-of layer portion l4b which. supports the center'stamping,

portion l8 of the stamp face. Theserecesses or grooves 32 and. 34 may be formed in the layer portions Ma and Nb by a small knife or other;

cutting means after the entire stamp has been recesses Hand 34 maybe provided in-a disc-like piece of sponge rubber, having an external diam.- eter equalto the other layers 12, prior to the sponge rubber thickness being adhered to a lowerfoam. rubber layer l2.

Although th grooves or recesses32 and 34in supporting layer [4 have been described heretoforeas generally radially extending, they may bedisposedobliquely. Fig. 2 shows one of the possible variations, wherein grooves 32aand 34a, shown in dot-dash, extend obliquely across layer portions Ma and MI), respectively. Fig. 7 shows a modified method of providing the grooves. In this latter embodiment the grooves 32b and 34b extend inwardly all the way across the surfaces of layer portions Ma and 1417, respectively, instead of, extending inwardly only part of the way, as in the preferred embodiment.

In Figs. 1-3 a recess II is shown extending through the printing surface 18 and the resilient layers supporting it. This may accommodate a. stamp holding plunger of an automatic stamping machine.

In the decorating operation, the stamp face is first inked by rollers or other suitable means. Where inking rollers are employed they preferably pass over the stamp face first in one direction and then in an opposite direction so as to achieve a uniform distribution of ink or other coloring medium. The substantially planar face of the stamp allows a smooth, even distribution of ink across it.

As a stamp and dish come together (Fig. 4) the stamp rim printing areas 20 are aligned with the dish rim and the stamp center printing area and. the central portion of a dish 36 are aligned with each other. Shortly thereafter the dish rim is. contacted initially by outer edge 38 of the rim printing portion 20. The resilient layers l0, l2 and I4 compress upon further movement together, allowing the printing surface It to conform to the shape of the concave dish surface 40. In Fig. 5 the rim of the dish 36 is shown in full contact with the rim stamping portion It. It will be noted that the stamping portion has increased its diameter somewhat due to the way in which it spreads or rolls onto the rim of the dish and that the recess 22 is somewhat enlarged. The center stamping portion I 8 however still maintains a planar face.

The dish is depicted in complete contact with the rim printing and the center printing stamp faces in Fig. 6. Both printing surfaces conform accurately to the angulate configuration of the inner surface of the dish. It can be seen in this figure how the radial recesses or grooves 32 and 34 facilitate the compression of layer portions I40 and: 14b. It: is believed thatduringrstampin'g:

or imprinting of ware. the compressed material of layer portion lz4a fills almost. completely the radial recess 32, while the compressed material of layer [4b fills toa lesser extent the radial recesses 34.. Smearing or blurring of the designs impressed because of excessive flexibility in the printing surfaces is minimized by the manner in which the resilient layer portions I20, and [4a are stabilized by resilient: layer portions I21) and I417- As said layer portions are compressed, they tend to. expand laterally, filling the slit 3!) and pressing one against. the other, as at points 42.

and. 44*. Asa result, the stamping surfaces I8 and 20. which are supported by said layer-por tions tend to be maintained in afixed lateral relationship one to the other; There is no'ob jectionable. tendency for either of the said stamp surfaces to creep or become distortedafter prolonged use, resulting for example ina perfectly printed dish center, but a rim printed oft center.

As the dish is retracted the processes just described occur in inverse order. The stand? faces roll away from the dish surface without any slipping or smearing. The resulting prints are sharp, clear and in'perfect self alignment. Although the present invention has been dis cussed chiefly in connection with decoration of ware such as dishes, platters, saucers, etc, it

may also be used for impressing designs on other articles with nonplana-r surfaces. The stamp need not be annular in form but may be of an irregular outline so as toconform to the shape of the particular ware to bedecora-ted;

It will be seen that'the present invention provides a new and improved stamp and method of making which forms sharp, clearly defined designs on the nonplanar or diiferent elevation surfaces of dishes and other wares, without'objectionable sinudging or blurring. It prints def signs on the marginal and center portionsof wares quickly and accurately in a single operation. The planar face of the stamp insures even: distribution of ink on its stamping surfaces so that the: resulting prints are of a uniform color and texture. The invention is relatively simple and inexpensive to make and may be easilymounted on a ware stampingmachine. It is of a rugged construction fully capable of withstanding the rough usage to which itmay be subjected.

ter herein is to be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense. 3

Having thus described my invention, I claim:

1. A stamping device for use in applying decorations to dishes and the like comprising a rigid backing structure, a thickness of compressible material secured to said rigid backing structure carrying a rim-decorating surface, an additional thickness of compressible material secured to said rigid backing structure carrying a centerdecorating surface separated from said rimdecorating surface, said thicknesses of material having adjoining side wall portions in abutting relationship with each other whereby one of said thicknesses of material tends to restrain the other against lateral movement.

2. A stamping device of the class described comprising, backing means, a layer of yieldable material carried by said backing means, a layer of yieldable material carried by said backing means having a side wall portion substantially abutting against a side wall portion of said first mentioned layer of yieldable material, whereby one of said layers of yieldable material tends to support the other of said layers of material against lateral movement, and separate layers of design-forming material carried by said layers of yieldable material.

3. A stamping device of the class described comprising, rigid backing means, a layer of yieldable material carried by said backing means adjacent outer portions thereof, an additional layer of yieldable material carried by. .said backing means inwardly of said outer portions having an outwardly disposed side wall ortion substantially abutting against an inwardly disposed side wall portion of said first mentioned layer of yieldable material, whereby one of said layers of yieldable material tends to support the other of said layers of material against lateral movement, and separate layers of design-forming material carried by said layers of yieldable material having outermost faces thereof lying in substantially the same plane.

4. A device as claimed in claim 3, in which said first mentioned layer of material is provided with a plurality of spaced and generally radially extending recesses beneath its layer of designforming material.

5. A stamping device of the class described comprising, a, rigid backing member, an outwardly disposed layer of yieldable material carried by and extending around marginal portions of said backing member, an additional layer of yieldable material carried by said rigid backing member lnteriorly of said outwardly disposed layer of yieldable material having an outwardly facing side wall portion substantially abutting against an inwardly facing side wall portion of said outwardly disposed layer of yieldable material, whereby said additional layer of yieldable material tends to support said outwardly disposed layer of material against lateral movement, and separate layers of design-forming material carried by each of said layers of yieldable material having outermost faces thereof lying in substantially'the same plane.

'61. A stamping device of the class described comprising, a rigid backing member, a generally annularly disposed layer of yieldable material carried by said backing member, a layer of yieldable material carried by said rigid backing member interiorly of said generally annular layer having outwardly facing side wall portions in substantially abutting relationship with inward- 8 1y facing side wall portions of said generally annular layer of material, whereby one of said yieldable material layers tends to support the other against sidewise movement, and separate layers of design-forming material carried by each of said yieldable material layers.

'7. A device as claimed in claim 6, in which each of said layers of yieldable material is provided with a plurality of spaced and generally radially extending recesses beneath its respective layer of design-forming material.

8. A stamping device of the class described comprising, a rigid backing member, a generally annularly disposed layer of yieldable material carried by said backing member, a layer of yieldable material carried by said rigid backing member interiorly of said generally annular layer having outwardly facing side wall portions adjacent a lower part thereof in substantially abutting relationship with inwardly facing side wall portions of said generally annular layer of materialfor restraining the annular layer against lateral movement and having outwardly facing side wall portions adjacent an upper part thereof spaced from inwardly facing side wall portions of said generally annular layer of material, and separate layers of design-forming material carried by each of said yieldable material layers having exposed surfaces lying in substantially a single plane.

9. A stamping device of the class described comprising, backing means, a layer of yieldable material carried by said backing means, yieldable material carried by said backing means having a side wall portion substantially abutting against a side wall portion of said layer of yieldable material, whereby one of said yieldable materials tends to support the other of said materials against lateral movement, and a design forming material carried by said layer of yieldable material and free of attachment to the other of said materials.

FREDERICK C. HENDERSON.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 972,359 Gibson Oct. 11, 1910 ,869,868 Selden Aug. 2, 1932 1,914,035 Moeschlin June 13, 1933 2,350,033 Hebenstreit May 30, 1934 2,493,953 Emerson Jan. 10, 1950 

